Традиционното домашно стопанство в Самоков
The Traditional Home Farms in Samokov

Summary/Abstract: The author considers the essence and the special features of the home farms in Samokov at the time around and after the Liberation from Ottoman bondage, and the first three or four decades of the present century. Activities around making full use of the not particularly large courtyards around the dwelling as market gardens, planting fruit trees and flowers are elucidated, as is the essence of the care taken in the breeding by almost every family of a cow, a pig, chickens and in many cases horses and donkeys. The good care taken to keep everything clean and orderly in the home farms is emphasized; it was chiefly due to the women, who made very rational use of the abundant water flowing from fountains and obtained from wells. Attention is also paid to the wise use made of natural resources for the needs of the households: fruit and herbs growing wild, as well as supplying themselves with wood for heating purposes from the nearby forests. Although they did not fully meet the material needs of the families, the home farms in Samokov were of vital importance for the life of the town population. This became particularly apparent in periods of crisis, such as were experienced after ore mining and the tailoring industry declined, and particularly during the wars. At present, when efforts are being made to activate personal farms in the system of meeting one's own needs, the author hopes that along with the ethnographic interest, the system he describes can well give certain ideas in the sphere of economics, regardless of the very great difference between living conditions in the past and today.

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